


Four Rocks and a King

by CapyWritesShit



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Campaign 05: A Crown of Candy, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Not Beta Read, Pre-Canon, idk how else to tag this lmao, implied belizabeth/citrina for like a second
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25816975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapyWritesShit/pseuds/CapyWritesShit
Summary: When the Ravening War begins in 1190, Candia has four living princesses and one living prince.When the Ravening War ends in 1195, Candia has four dead princesses and one living king.
Relationships: Amethar Rocks & Citrina Rocks & Lazuli Rocks & Rococoa Rocks & Sapphria Rocks, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	Four Rocks and a King

Lazuli Rocks is a heretic.

They call her the Alchemist of House Rocks because her official title of Archmage has Bulbians foaming at the mouths like rabid animals. She can weave time and magic through her fingers like silk, pull the strings of fate to obey her every wish like she's simply sewing a tapestry. Her wards all think her the most powerful mage there ever was, and ever will be, but they are mistaken. Lazuli can see the most powerful mage in existence, and she has not yet been born.

In the throes of war, Candian Bulbians are far more lenient with Archmage Lazuli's magic, as it helps Candia survive Duke Jawbreaker's rebellion and Queen Pamelia's death. They can excuse the way she looks at the world as if calculating how much time she truly has left, can excuse the way she regards the Bulb as merely a source of power for others to draw upon.

Whilst the war picks up and more and more countries join, Lazuli watches from the solace of her chambers as the world falls apart, Vegetanians and Fructerans slaughtering each other senselessly under the rule of a man spreading himself too thin, and she waits. Her mind runs a hundred miles a second, millions of timelines crossing her mind as she surveys the state of the world and thinks.

Before the war has even truly hit it's crescendo, Lazuli dies in a burst of arrows that rain down from the sky as if the Bulb itself was calling down judgement from its holy perch. Her family weeps, but they have little to no time to truly mourn, and so Candia moves on as they join the Dairy Islands and Gustavo Uvano overthrows Count Jaques Tomaté to become ruler of Fructera.

Archmage Lazuli of House Rocks is revered as a hero, even by Candian Bulbians, who insist she was the most benevolent and powerful alchemist ever to be born on Candian soil.

* * *

Sapphria Rocks is a liar.

The entirety of Castle Candy knows this. She's a thief, a trickster, a rogue. She spits lies through her teeth like it's nothing and can work any noble in any country throughout Calorum with ease. Her proficiency in sneaking and stealthing isn't nearly as well known as her proficiency in sweet talking and wrapping royalty around her blue candy fingers, but the residents of Castle Candy know.

By the time the war is nearing it's fifth year, Sapphria has the leaders of Fructera, the Dairy Islands, and the Meat Lands absolutely tied up in her web, indebted to her one way or another. The Vegetanians and Ceresians are a bit harder to win over, harder to slip into. Sapphria works hard anyways, expanding her connections under the pretense of kindness with smiles showing too much teeth.

The things she does in the cover of the night are a different matter entirely. After all, rogues aren't all just great conversationalists. Sapphria has a quick tongue and a sharp wit but her reflexes prove quicker and her knives sharper. By day, Princess Sapphria is making negotiations with a Carnish diplomat over tea and snacks, and by night, a Candian assassin is killing three separate Vegetanian nobles all threatening to make moves against the Meat Lands.

She is called out to the battlefield one day with the impression that she is going to be adding another pawn to her chess board, another debt owed to the forgiving and gracious Princess Sapphria of House Rocks. Instead she is struck down by a disguised Ceresian soldier, who stabs her with water steel just as she's reaching in to shake his hand and possibly do the same to him.

Fate twists on Sapphria in the ugliest way as she dies at the hands of a liar, who's words are saccharine and drip with poison when spat at her corpse.

* * *

Citrina Rocks is a fool.

Church bells seem to ring in her presence, and holy light radiates from her miracle working hands. Her book, one the Bulb above has allowed her to imbue with magic, is permanently glued to her side, patiently waiting for her to force someone's hand on its cover and ask the questions no good and holy man wants to answer.

Belizabeth Brassica, Pontifex of the Bulbian Church, is a wonderful woman, very reasonable, and Citrina wants desperately to show her the true beauty of that the Bulb can bring to the world. Yes, the church has the right idea, but some of their practices are simply incorrect and Citrina _knows_ this, practices better things and sticks truer to the faith than anyone before her.

Her trip to Vegetania to meet with the esteemed Pontifex is filled with hope. Hope for a better future, a stronger union between nations and a greater hold over the people of Calorum than any other unholy religion that's seemed to pop up. Saint Citrina of House Rocks, Primogen of the Bulbian Church, is accompanied by three guards in a nondescript carriage because she is intimately aware of the tension that runs thick through the streets like blood.

It doesn't do her any good. Upon arrival, waves of Vegetanian soldiers attack the carriage, blinded by the rage of seeing someone who believes herself holier than them simply by wielding some of the Bulb's power for her own selfish desires. The Candians would've never survived, and had Citrina heeded the warning her father had given her before her departure, she may not have had to witness her guards' gorey deaths before the Vegetanians put her down as well.

The light in her hands fades as the sounds of church bells dissipate with the wind. Citrina stares up at the Bulb in the sky and prays, and to her dismay, she is given no answer before her mind is wiped clean.

* * *

Rococoa Rocks is a menace.

During her reign as General Rococoa of House Rocks, Candia sees a future in which they are not in pieces at the feet of those proven stronger than them in sheer conviction of hatred alone. Many of her followers are commoners, with little to no military training, so confident in her leadership that they'd follow her into hell should she choose to guide them there.

Enemy soldiers learn to fear the Twizzling Blade, learn to turn and run the moment a large Candian woman takes to the battlefield. The way she commands her troops with such certainty and strength is a sight to behold, one that strikes fear into the hearts of all that oppose Candia. Rumors float around Vegetania and Ceresia and even the Meatlands of her power, of the fearsome General Rococoa that took down an entire fleet with a single swing of her sword.

Other rumors flit about Rococoa's own ranks, ones that tell of her slow-to-trust nature and her critical eyes. They call her paranoid, brash, the lonely future Queen of Candia. Rococoa thinks she's simply careful, because one can never be sure about anything in the chaos of war. Luckily the ability to ignore rumors and still hold her troops' complete trust is somewhat of a talent of hers.

And, as she uncovers Lord Calroy Cruller's betrayal in the form of aiding Ceresian fleets, she feels such hard set resolve that she can't bring herself to think of the consequences of her discovery. He's a traitor, an oath breaker, an infiltrator and a piece of rotting bread that needs to be executed immediately. Calroy Cruller is, first a foremost, a Ceresian, and Rococoa should've seen it sooner. Unfortunately she does not get the chance to act before her body is rife with pain and she falls. The arrows strike her hard and true behind Candian lines at the edge of Pangranos, and she feels only regret for not having been more careful, more paranoid.

When she looks into the eyes of her baby brother's most trusted advisor, standing over her with a nasty scowl, Rococoa hopes that, even if she may never rewind time, her brother does not make the same fatal mistake she has.

* * *

Amethar Rocks is a king.

His coronation is held months after the end of the Ravening War, with his beloved parents and four older sisters dead and a country in desperate need of a ruler. A crown is set upon his head, slowly, deliberately, and Amethar wishes for nothing more than his sisters to be there instead, any one of them taking his place as the new King of Candia.

Caramelinda is stoic at his side. Cal shoots him a sympathetic frown. Theo stands up straighter. Amethar knows that being king is a responsibility, something he can't simply push aside for more appealing things. He is committed to Candia's wellbeing but he knows that, even so, he is going to screw it up at some point. King Amethar of House Rocks is not built for this job, cannot fathom how he ended up the one on the throne, illiterate and unaware of how to rule a kingdom coming off the tragedies of war.

He knows Candia like the back of his hand, knows his way around the land better than most, but politics and people have him running in circles trying to find his own head. People are more fragile, he finds, when you're trying to talk to them rather than when you're fighting them. It's difficult. Everything he does is under constant scrutiny, and there is never a moment he feels truly prepared for this job that's been thrust upon him.

A lot of the time he has trusted friends helping him along, doing the real work while he holds the figurehead, but it's still tough. There isn't a second of rest, a minute of downtime for him to reflect on why fate has twisted his life so far from its former path that he has to be taught things that his sisters learned in their teenage years, before there was a war to win and a kingdom to protect.

The crown weighs heavy on his head, a reminder of what's been lost and what Candia has to gain, and how much he's already messed up. Caramelinda can barely look at him without that _look_ in her eyes, the pity and resentment and guilt and pure sorrow, and Amethar can say nothing because he knows he mirrors her in that respect. He feels bad, feels _horrible_ , because he was never supposed to be on the throne and he _knows_ it's hard for her, but he can do nothing but try his best and fail time and time again.

So Amethar bucks up, so that when he watches his kingdom fall due to his own incompetence, he can at least stand tall and hope to rebuild it. Hope, he finds, is only as empowering as he lets it be, and looking at his sisters' statues in the silence and emptiness of the room in which they stand, he does not feel as though hope will ever be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> i just suddenly got a lot of feelings about the rocks siblings and churned this out. it's unedited but it's short so that's okay ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> comments and kudos are always appreciated, thank you so much for reading!!
> 
> [tumblr](https://theswirlersisterscircus.tumblr.com)


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